The Beauty of The 3DS

    Time for my first video-game-themed blog post. This was a really long one, but I'd appreciate it if you read the whole thing.

    Video games have always played an important role in my life. Don't get me wrong, for the past few years I've REALLY grown my music interest a lot to a point where it's probably my biggest interest right now, but I've been into video games for a long time and still hold more memories with that.

    I don't think I'll ever forget the day my dad came home with a Wii U and a copy of Super Mario 3D World, that day absolutely changed my life. I was in first grade and my sister and I were excited once we saw it... well I'm not sure if we did, that was a long time ago, but let's just assume we were. Since then I formed a love for all kinds of game franchises, like Super Smash Bros. and Splatoon, so it was pretty clear that I was REALLY into Nintendo stuff. Fast forward to a year later in second grade, and my sister and I came home with a package. In the package was a red-colored New Nintendo 3DS XL with a copy of Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS and The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask 3D. This wasn't really something as exciting as the Wii U at first for me personally.

    Don't really remember doing too-exciting things with it for a long time. Sure, Smash Bros was fun, but I've already played that a long time on another console, as I've mentioned earlier; and Majora's Mask? We don't talk about that here. Oh, and don't forget Face Raiders... oh wait, that game was pretty forgetful anyway. The only thing I found cool about it at the time was it being portable. My sister once brought it to a field trip since her class was also allowed to bring an electronic device. I could still access the photos she took on that day, low quality selfies on the bus and sometimes edits of those with graffiti. We also brought the 3DS when we were in the Philippines in the summer. Really my first huge interest in the 3DS happened later because of Pokémon.

    I don't know how I got into it, but I just did. It definitely wasn't because of the cards, anime, or Pokémon Go, probably just some YouTube videos I found while scrolling through it on the YouTube app on the TV using Roku. Anyways, my interest definitely grew a lot more as Pokémon Sun and Moon were announced and later released. I really wanted to play it, and did actually get to later, but that's because of my sister. On Christmas in 2016, my sister got Pokémon Sun. I did feel a bit jealous, but was fine with it at the end of the day because I got a Wacom Drawing Pen Tablet and a Journal that I did use for a while. I would watch my sister play Pokémon Sun though, going through her journey in the game and receiving that free Munchlax gift that would come with Snorlium Z. Sometimes she'd let me take over her journey. I remember working really hard on beating the normal type gym thing, whatever it was called. Unfortunately that later meant nothing, because I forgot to save. Looks like it just meant nothing at the end of the day. But that didn't stop my interest in Pokémon, as I watched all kinds of Pokémon animations on YouTube and channels like TrueGreen7, MYSTIC7, UnlistedLeaf, and most important of all, MunchingOrange, especially him. I was obsessed with his Pokémon Sun and Moon walkthrough and once snuck downstairs early just to watch his walkthroughs. He absolutely carried my childhood for a long time. I was THAT excited to play Sun or Moon, and on my birthday, I finally got Moon.

    I was really excited and played it for the rest of the night. That was the start of many other memorable moments with the game for me. It not just grew my interest in Pokémon, but even with the 3DS. I started to try all kinds of games we got and games my sister downloaded on it. If you've been following me on the internet for a long time, you'll even know that one of my first videos on YouTube was a gameplay video of Team Kirby Clash Deluxe on my 3DS, which was surprisingly my first video that did pretty well for small content creators like me. But after this, my interest in my 3DS died down quickly.

    I started to become more interested in my Wii U especially with the announcement of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on its way, which led me to play a lot of Super Smash Bros. on my Wii U, pretending to play all competitive. I'm not trying to sound all negative about that though, I love the Wii U. I just feel like I should've still shown appreciation for the 3DS. I don't know how to fill up this blog post with stuff related to the 3DS that happened from since then to the present, so let's skip to the present now.

    Months before where I am now, I started using my Switch again. But it wasn't for much, usually just taking advantage of the daily free plays on Nintendo Badge Arcade and Pokémon Shuffle; and occasionally Pokémon Rumble World, Tomodachi Life, and even Super Smash Bros. on the 3DS in attempt to collect every trophy. It was nothing too special, just to take advantage of a daily offer to make a bit of progress in these games. I felt like I should save Pokémon Moon for another time, considering the fact that I still haven't beaten it yet.

    Now fast forward to the present, or, well, a week ago, but that's around the present so let's consider it. On my birthday (the 9th) I did what I finally anticipated to do for a while, go back to Pokémon Moon. The reason why I did this was because I realized that it had been 5 years since I got the game, so I wanted to celebrate that by trying to make some progress in the game. There were some moments I remember when doing that, like harvesting Poke Beans and beating a beginner trainer outside my house on the beach with a level 6 Grubbin that I surprisingly haven't fought yet. Some precious memories of the game came back to me while playing, probably because I had no idea what was my next objective in the game. This somehow sprouted my interest in the 3DS, and then onto the 13th, I played Pokémon Moon again. Later I looked around my 3DS: the apps, badges on the home screen, etc. I even got kinda bored after and simply searched "3DS" on the YouTube search tab and started watching some videos. This grew my interest into more games on the system, cool features on it like Nintendo Zone, and modding. After all this, I decided I'd use my 3DS more, purely for nostalgia, which I did end up doing and still continue to do. It reminds me of some times back in 6th grade where I'd go straight upstairs to play The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild on my Switch right after I get home.

    The day after I brought my 3DS to my cousin's house after church to play Tomodachi Life and even later Cooking Mama 3 because my sister bought it at a flea market for $1, pretty crazy. Later in the day I spent the rest of the day modding my 3DS. It was a pretty long experience, but it worked at the end, and really unlocked a lot of use for the 3DS. The day after, I found a way to get games on the 3DS for free, so I did that with Rhythm Heaven Megamix because my sister wanted me to do it for her to play. I even got a custom Neon Genesis Evangelion theme on the 3DS, with an 8-bit recreation of a scene from the anime as well as an 8-bit version of A Cruel Angel's Thesis. Yet again, also because my sister wanted me to. But anyways, I realized how much more my interest into the 3DS was growing yet again. So now let's talk about what I found fascinating about the console.

    The 3DS, though small, came with a lot to offer, and a lot that was made out of it. The best part about all of that was that it could be used anywhere, anytime, with the portability. For example, Nintendo Zone, an application letting users access exclusive content and demos of upcoming games when going to specific places like Best Buy and Home Depot stores. There was also Mii Plaza, a program allowing users to connect with other users when bringing around their 3DS' near each others' to register them to a virtual plaza via StreetPass. Those users could be used in games included in Mii Plaza, and Nintendo offered a lot of them. Just like the Wii U, the 3DS also had Miiverse, a social platform to let users talk about games. Unlike the Nintendo Switch, the 3DS provided a fully-functioning web browser. It did have a few problems, but it still worked.

    Even 3DS users who didn't really have anything to start with were provided with some things. There was Face Raiders (as I mentioned earlier), a pre-installed game allowing users to capture the faces of others with the camera, fighting them and rescuing them by shooting them around with the AR camera. There was also the AR Games, minigames that could be used to show how the AR camera worked by giving users AR cards with Nintendo characters on them that could be scanned, each giving it's own minigame. It also allowed users to draw with them and play around with those drawings.

    If that wasn't enough, the console's Nintendo eShop allowed users to download games, applications, and home menu themes for the console. It provided demos, digital exclusives, and even Virtual Console games, direct ports of games from earlier Nintendo consoles such as the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, etc. The eShop even gave light to many indie game developers. There was also a handful of free games, some encouraging users to play daily, like Nintendo Badge Arcade and Pokémon Rumble World.

    Even if that wasn't enough, there were still other available options for what you were allowed to do with the 3DS aside from just buying games and playing them. Users who owned a DS or DSi could use their DS cartridges on the 3DS since it was backwards compatible.

    The 3DS offered so much that it was used in all kinds of ways. Back in somewhere around 2017~2018, I went with my family to France, since my sister had been wanting to go there for a very long time. At one point, we went to the Louvre Museum to look at all kinds of art, including the famous Mona Lisa. Something that caught my eye there was copies of a 3DS application being sold called the Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre, an application guiding visitors around the museum, with audio clips explaining the paintings and their backgrounds, as well as photographs. Despite how we didn't bring along our 3DS to France, we were given 3DS' with the program that we could borrow while maneuvering around the museum.

    That was basically it, but that wasn't all. The 3DS community filled with developers and programmers were able to mod  and "homebrew" the console, which used the full potential that the 3DS had, and it all worked. Users who modified their console would then be able to run community-developed software and ports programmed for the 3DS, emulators of all kinds of consoles, custom themes and modifications for games, and a lot more. The best part was that it could all be accessed by the user wherever they went.

    Sorry if this is getting too long, but that's pretty much all I could think of from the top of my head. I've never written this much before. Anyways, the reason why I wrote this was because some changes have been made to the 3DS. Today, the ability to do credit card payments on the 3DS and Wii U eShop have stopped. 1 year from now, the eShop for those two consoles will unfortunately end. Though it won't feel too special since almost no one is still using the 3DS' eShop nowadays, it does still play an important role in modding. A step of the process (for some reason) requires installing Pokémon Picross to run a modding software. Unless you already have it, you should definitely try modding it soon before the time runs out, that way you could unlock its full potential, otherwise it becomes pretty much useless. Though it's a bit time-consuming, its worth it, I've used it a lot recently to play a port of the classic FPS Quake that was developed by a member of the modding community.

    That's it, I'd definitely appreciate your help as a reader to share this to anyone you know has a 3DS and may have not modded their console yet, and instead leaves it lying around.  Of course, I appreciate you again for reading this all the way through. But that's it. So yeah.

-Anthony "Salteh" S.

How an Online Diary Changed My Life

    For a long time, I've always worried about losing things, I always want to keep things that could open a memory for me, which is why dates are important. Now let's pause and focus on something I just mentioned: memories. Memories are things I wish I could keep with me forever, I think almost everyone would or should think the same. So, one year ago, just 5 days before my birthday, I downloaded an app on my phone. It was a diary app called Penzu.

    Once I signed up, I started just expressing how I feel about the start of this, and then just described my day and the order of events that day. Ever since that day, I continued almost every day (of course), continuing to write what happened on my day at night. It did bore me sometimes when writing for some days, but I was glad to get them kept and recorded, just in case I wanted to look back at them. Plus, Penzu would even email me reminding me of journal entries I wrote exactly months ago. There were some days I would skip, but there were barely any, though some were registered to be written on different days because I didn't start writing them before 12 AM. But I still managed to keep track of almost every day since then, because I wanted to hold memories close with me.

    I'd usually describe my morning routine, then what I did in school, then the order of things I did at home or anywhere else outside of school. If it was a special day I'd throw in some exciting celebration statement in the first sentence. If there was a moment that really struck with me, I don't think I'd go too into detail with that, but I have been starting to do that. On school days, I'd try to note some particular thing that happened in one of the periods before lunch. If I signed up for something, bought, downloaded, or did something online content related, I'd mention that as well. As I said earlier, I was glad I was able to get them done with and keep them, for sometimes I'd randomly scroll through my journal entries and click on random ones to read and see what I did on those days.

    It doesn't matter if I highlighted good or bad moments, all I feel that is important when it comes to the diary is that I'm able to keep a memory of almost every day. I know it may make me look a too sensitive since I worry about losing things, but I see it as a good thing. I'd definitely recommend you all start using a diary to record moments of your life and how you felt on days if you haven't already.

So yeah, thanks to Penzu for changing my life, and thanks to everyone who read this to understand my story.

-Anthony "Salteh" S.

Moving on is hard.

   On the 13th of March, I ate breakfast downstairs before going to school. I didn’t eat in the dining room though, why? A bunch of men were there, talking to my mom about a problem found in the house. What was the conclusion my mom decided on? Renovate the whole dining and kitchen room.

    This brought a whole impact. It was a change to something so big, something I’ve known for a long time. Before the start of the renovation, I snuck out at to take pictures, pictures of a place that was rotting, pictures of a place I wouldn’t be able to look at normally again. Letting go of things isn’t easy, especially if it’s something you’ve known for your whole life. But this wouldn’t only affect how I feel about the house, but how I’ve been living my life for the past few months.

    Since they’re working on the room, they obviously have to block us off from entering. That had a huge effect on our lifestyle at home. All the food and resources in our home are all cramped into one room. It looks like something you’d see on the street with the homeless living with it. So we can’t use our oven or sink, unless it’s the bathroom sink upstairs. Speaking of appliances, our fridge is in the middle of the living room.

    How do we eat collectively as a family? We sit at a small couch and eat our food on paper plates, sometimes we sit on the floor with the food on the couch. How do I eat breakfast? I sit at my normal desk, my keyboard pushed out of the way, and I eat on the desk. How are the dishes (when we use them) cleaned? My mom washes them in the bathroom in the sink or tub.

    This situation is horrible. For a while, every day felt the same: just wake up, eat breakfast in a small room, go straight downstairs and then to school, come back, eat dinner in a big room that’s filled up and stopping us from moving around it, then just go upstairs and do all my work there, then sleep. Sometimes I didn’t want to wake up, knowing I’d have to face the same cycle. I’ve literally gotten sick from this. Did my parents care? No. I’ve expressed how I felt, did they care? No. Whenever I have free time, what do I do? Spend time on my computer or phone. My parents complain about it, yet never realize I can’t do anything else since everything’s blocked off. I can’t play piano downstairs because the huge dump downstairs blocked it off. Every time my parents say it’s over soon, it isn’t. They’ve been at it for almost 2 months.

    Anyway, it’s May now, 8 days until my birthday. Can I celebrate it? Probably not. Am I insane for worrying over a literal kitchen? Can someone please help me out?

-Anthony “Salteh” S.